Sunday, February 26, 2012

Training log - Week ending 2/26/12

Much of this week was a cutback week, in terms of intensity. I haven’t overreached yet -- in fact, my legs felt the best they had in 2 weeks at Tuesday’s track workout – but a persistent mild sinus infection plus a bad night’s sleep on Monday night (when I let work stress get to me more than it should have) were both clear indications that I needed to back off. So, I moderated the intensity by a) limiting Tuesday’s workout to the minimum # of reps and b) skipping Friday tempo altogether. I also focused again on all the things I’ve been slacking off on – higher carb intake, more salt, enough sleep (got a full 8 hours on Wednesday and Thursday nights, which was awesome). And by Friday I was feeling wonderfully perky.

It was perfect timing for an intensity cutback anyway – I was in Westchester County, NY on Thursday and Friday for work, and had absolutely no idea where I was going to run my tempo workout. So, instead I did an exploratory easy run, and ended up touring the Purchase College campus (which will work for tempo for next year's trip).

Hopefully, it’s an indication of some nascent common sense that I’m learning to back off BEFORE I go over the edge. It’s very hard to do.

*sigh* Wrote the above before Sunday’s long run, where I ended up running way too fast – I felt like I was running standard long run effort, but was unpleasantly surprised when I saw the watch report at the end. Still a work in progress, and 0 for 2 in my workouts this week. I love running my workouts off of effort and ignoring my watch, but I'm targeting the wrong effort, and need to recalibrate.

Dailies

Monday: In the morning, 2000 yards of swimming breathing drills followed by 40 minutes of poolrunning for “4 miles”, and then some upper body and core strength work, plus injury prevention exercises. Foam-rolling at night.

Tuesday: In the morning, 9 miles including a track workout of 4x1200 (scheduled was 4-6x1200). Ran 4:37, 4:33, 4:24, 4:24 (last two were too fast). Followed with injury prevention work and 30 minutes of shakeout pool-running. Floor barre and foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: In the morning 9 miles easy (8:08 pace) followed by yoga. Later, 6 miles easy (8:02 pace). Also foam-rolling/stretching.

Thursday: In the morning, light upper body and core strength work, plus injury prevention exercises, followed by 30 minutes very easy pool-running (3 “miles”), and then foam-rolling at night.

Friday: In the morning, 12 easy miles (8:04 pace), followed by some injury prevention work. Foam-rolling and stretching, plus pilates, at night.

Saturday: In the morning, 10 miles easy to moderate (7:50 pace). Most of the run was easy, but I’ll fess up that I picked it up to 7:30 pace the last two miles when the temperature dropped significantly, the wind picked up to 25+ mph, and it started snowing (I was wearing a tank top, which was perfect for the conditions when I STARTED the run).

Sunday: Long run of 16.5 miles – overall pace was 7:16, with progression of 8:21 pace for first 1.5 miles; 7:39 for the next 5.5, 7:04 for the next 7.5, and 6:23 for last 2 miles (huh?). Was told to ease up, but apparently failed to do so -- had no idea I was running that fast until I checked the watch post run. Crap. Followed with injury prevention work at gym, and then 20 minutes of easy pool-running for “2 miles”. Foam rolling and restorative yoga at night.

I had the same issue on my long run this week - I'm choosing to believe that I'm just faster for the same level of effort. If the trend/pace holds up for a few weeks, maybe it's correct. If not...well...then I screwed up today. Oh well.

saturday's weather was ridiculous - I was glad to move my ride inside so I didn't get blown into the river. and, I think that you ARE using more common sense before falling off the ledge, despite the end of your LR - you are seeing what happened and reacting appropriately instead of fist-pumping about how "fast" you were. it's the path to wisdom, my friend.

Also, you can run "watchless", but set an alarm to go off if you go too fast. Say, set it at 7:00 pace then turn the screen blank. It will go nuts if you cross that pace, but you won't be obsessively looking at the watch the whole run.

I think when your coach tells you during the middle of your long run that you're running too fast, then you can safely assume that you ran too fast. :) And realistically, the point of a long run is not to be a second tempo; it's just that for some reason I find it much easier to hit tempo pace at the end of a long run than I do during a tempo. It's like I need a 10-12 mile warm-up...

I thought about setting the Garmin alarm, but a) the pace function is not dependable -- regularly shifts between 5:xx pace and 9:xx when I'm running easy. An also, I try to mentally ignore the watch entirely, and running with a OMG is my watch gonna go off mentality doesn't really fit.

Plus, I seem to run best when I focus on correct effort, so I really need to be recalibrating my perceptions of EFFORT, and fixing this issue that way. I need to learn to relax, chill, and leave stuff in the tank, rather than get back into the habit of relying neurotically on a device -- therein lies trouble for me, I think.

Full slew of race reports here (from my first in June 2007 to 2010) and here (2011).

workouts

(you can click on the link to see the details)

Pool running conversion

I convert my pool-running into “mileage” with this formula:

1)10 minutes “easy” in the pool equals one mile

2)workouts translate by time into mileage, with the recoveries not counting for mileage.For example, I would normally cover half a mile in 3:00 during an interval workout, and 1.5 miles in 10:00 during a tempo.So 8x3:00 at interval effort is 4 miles, and 10 minutes at tempo effort is 1.5 miles.